American Daredevil

April 15, 2016
Separating the escapades from the exaggerations in the life of one of the best adventurers of his age. After graduating from Princeton, Richard Halliburton (1900-1939) and his friend Mike Hockaday worked their way across the Atlantic to Hamburg on a freighter. Though postwar Germany was suffering under reparation costs, Halliburton's published works always emphasized escape and optimism. Textures, sounds, and colors were more important than recent history. Ancient history was always an interest, however, and he followed the trail of Ulysses through Troy, Athens, and Ithaca. He was in Paris at the time of the Lost Generation, but he ignored their inclination to write of sexuality, politics, and race, writing instead about his own heroics. Prince (Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, 2013, etc.) makes no bones about the fact that Halliburton was an adventurer, not an explorer. He was out to make a name for himself, always daring to break the rules in order to get the story. His books were bestsellers, and his fans came from all walks of life; children wanted to emulate him, grandmothers wanted to adopt him, and many wished to marry him--but marriage was never in his plans. He had no need to be tied down, and his homosexuality was neatly masked by his daring exploits. He was never physically robust, but his nervous energy and determination made up for a lack of strength. It's easy to understand his popularity during the heady days of the 1920s and his need to escape in the '30s. He was a celebrity travel writer, star of the lecture circuit, and he dined with kings, movie stars, and anyone with influence who might help finance his next trip. A rollicking tale of the incredible saga of a man constantly searching for the next exploit and sharing them in his writings.

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June 1, 2016
This is a good old-fashioned biography of an almost forgotten celebrity, Richard Halliburton, an adventurer and best-selling author who regaled America throughout the 1920s and 1930s with his exploits. Part Lawrence of Arabia, part Amelia Earhart, Halliburton left Princeton for the high seas and then scaled the Matterhorn in a climb as brave as it was foolhardya combination that quickly became his trademark. His book about the climb became a huge success; in subsequent volumes, he retraced Ulysses' travels, followed Cortez through Mexico, circumnavigated the globe by airplane, and swam the Panama Canal. Halliburton was a one-man PR powerhouse, continually promoting himself through magazine articles as well as the lecture circuit. He was also gay, with a longtime partner, journalist Paul Mooney. Prince barely scratches the tension this created, perhaps because the destruction of much of Halliburton's correspondence stymied research. Lost at sea in 1939 while sailing a junk from Hong Kong to San Francisco's Golden Gate International Exposition, Halliburton was a trailblazer in that quintessential American career: the creation of celebrity through the manipulation of media.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)